Nearly 100 alligators are on the loose in China

Yangtze
alligators are seen at the Chinese Alligator Propagation Research
Center in Xuancheng, east China's Anhui province, June 12,
2007.Reuters/Jianan
Yu

Nearly 100 Chinese alligators have escaped their pens in Wuhu,
Anhui, after flooding along the Yangtze River allowed them to
swim over their enclosure fences,

Anhui Business News reports.

By Wednesday afternoon, only eight of the escaped animals had
been recaptured.

An elderly farmer in the town of Huaqiao said he opened his door
on Wednesday morning and saw an alligator lying on his doorstep.
Other villagers reported they had encountered the predators
regularly in recent days, sometimes mistaking the animals for
rotten logs floating on the surface of the water.

Over a large area of flooded farmland, the deep noises made
by the alligators could constantly be heard and sounded “like
pigs”, according to the report.

The animals all belonged to one alligator farm. The farm owner
said he had received flood warnings and had carried out
countermeasures such as strengthening the fences, but the flood
pushed the water level to more than half a metre above the
fences.

The farm is not the largest in Anhui. Another alligator farm in
the city of Xuancheng keeps more than 10,000 alligators, and the
local authorities are taking emergency measures to reinforce the
fences. So far, only one animal has escaped.

The Chinese alligator, also known as the Yangtze alligator, is a
native species that can grow to more than two metres in length
and there are historical records of them attacking humans. In
recent decades, the number of alligators has declined sharply due
to pollution and over hunting, with very few reports of sightings
in the wild. The farm animals were artificially bred for tourism,
meat, leather and use in Chinese traditional medicines.

The Wuhu government said Chinese alligators are usually timid and
should not attack people unless frightened or provoked. A task
force including government animal experts is on hand to recapture
the escaped animals.

The government warned that anyone who spread rumours to cause
public panic would be arrested and punished severely.

According to farmers taking part in the recapture mission, the
animals are not easy to catch as they are constantly on high
alert and, when animal experts approached them with nets, tend to
submerge and escaped in the muddy water.